Enacting of the Teleworking Law Project.
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Labor and Social Security Law Department Report | Enacting of the Teleworking Law Project
Dear Sir or Madam,
On July 30th, 2020, the Argentine Senate Chamber approved the Remote Working Bill (the “Bill”), which shall become an Act once the Executive Power enacts it and will come into force 90 days after the end of the social, preventive and compulsory isolation.
The main points of the Bill are the following:
a. Remote working contract: The remote working contract is incorporated as a contractual modality in Section 102 of the Employment Contract Law.
b. Remuneration: The remuneration of employees who perform tasks remotely cannot be less than the one they received or would have received by working on site.
c. Digital disconnection: It is established that employees working under a remote modality shall have the right not to be contacted and to disconnect from digital and/or technological means outside their working hours and during their leaves of absence. Likewise, the employer may not make any request or contact employees outside their working hours.
d. Care duties: All those employees that have a sole or shared responsibility for the care of children under 13 years of age, disabled people, or adults who require specific assistance, shall have the right to establish a compatible schedule with the care tasks and/or to interrupt the working day. Any action of the employer that violates this right shall be presumed to be discriminatory.
e. Willfulness – reversibility: Employees that perform services on-site and change to a remote working scheme must give their written consent. This consent may be revoked at any time and in such case, the employer must grant tasks to the employees in the premises where they previously rendered services or, alternatively, in the premises closest to the employee’s home, unless the employer proves not to be able to satisfy this request under sufficient grounds.
f. Working tools: The employer must provide the employees with all working tools and support needed for rendering tasks and shall bear all installation, maintenance, and repair costs. In case the employees render services with their own equipment, the employer shall compensate them in accordance with the parameters established by the collective bargaining.
g. Maintenance of working tools: Employees shall be responsible for the correct use and maintenance of the equipment and working tools provided by the employer and shall ensure that they are not used by third parties.
h. Compensation of expenses: Those who work under a remote modality will be entitled to be compensated for those higher expenses in connectivity and/or consumption of services that they have to face. This compensation shall be made in accordance with the parameters established by the collective negotiations and will be exempt from the Income Tax.
i. Training: The employer shall guarantee the correct training in new technologies, which may be jointly carried out together with the representative trade union and the Ministry of Labor.
j. Collective rights: Employees that work remotely shall enjoy all collective rights and shall be considered, for the purposes of trade union representation, part of the group of those who work on-site.
k. Union representation: The union that shall represent employees working under a remote modality shall be one of the activities of the employer. Those who work remotely shall be allocated by the employer to a work center, productive unit, or specific area of the company, for the purpose of electing and being elected as union representatives.
l. Control systems: control systems established to protect the employer’s information and property shall safeguard the employees’ intimacy and their household privacy.
m. Data protection: The employer must take all appropriate measures to guarantee the protection of the data used and processed by the employee. These surveillance systems shall not violate the privacy of the employee.
n. Transnational contracts: Transnational remote working contracts will be governed by the law of execution of services or by the law of the employer’s domicile, whichever is more favorable to the employee. In case foreign individuals who do not reside in the country are hired under this method, prior authorization of the enforcement authority will be required.
o. Companies registry: All companies that implement remote working schemes must register in the Ministry of Labor, indicating the software or platform they will be using and informing the number of employees providing services under this method, which will need to be updated with each new hiring or on a monthly basis.
Should you require any further information on this matter, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Sincerely,
Alvaro J. Galli
María Eduarda Noceti
Santiago H. Taboada